Saturday, May 30, 2009

This $5 million school-choice tax credit, signed into law yesterday by the governor of Arizona, is named after Lexie Weck, a seven-year-old girl with autism, cerebral palsy, and mild mental retardation who attends a small private school in Tempe that specializes in working with autistic children.

4 comments:

You left out a lot of information. Maybe because you did not want your readers to completely understand the entire issue or see the complete picture.

Arizona passed autism insurance mandate similar to Nick's Law in 2008. That allows parents to make the best decisions for care for their children. Up to that point, the parents had to rely on the public schools to help provide medical care.

Now the parents can use a combination of private centers, public schools, and home programs to provide the medically necessary care.

In Oklahoma, while I do not know if insurance companies pay state income tax, you are asking the state to provide a 5 million dollar tax credit while we are in declining revenues.

I have a couple of counter propositions for you. If you are willing to propose a tax cut for $ 5 million, would you consider as an alternative to use the $7 million slush fund that the House keeps for such things as office renovations. I can think of a lot better uses for that money than flat screen TV's for offices, new chairs, etc.

How about allowing parents to deduct 100% of expenses they incur paying for their childrens treatments?

When the state is experiencing declining revenues is the perfect time to provide school-choice tax credits. As I never tire of repeating, school choice saves the state money:http://okschoolchoice.blogspot.com/search/label/Fiscal%20Impact

I too, agree with Wayne Rohde Brandon. You left our so much information. I find that surprising about you. We desperately need Nick's law to pass. As you may remember I have a child recovering from Autism. We also homeschool. I think medical treatment should come before scholastic endeavors. This may be one of the few times I firmly disagree with you. Just my thoughts, Angela Utley

Thanks for reading the blog and taking the time to comment. When Wayne says I "left out a lot of information," what he means is that I didn't write what Wayne would have written. He and I will never agree about whether or not it's proper in a free society to tell private companies what products they have to sell; one hopes that he and others -- whether or not they're for Nick's Law -- will work for something like a "Lexie's Law" in Oklahoma.

Educational Choice in a Nutshell

The end goal of “public education” is an educated public. There are many different means to an end. Educational choice refers to any policy that allows parents to choose the safest and best schools for their children, whether those schools are government-operated or privately operated. Oklahoma, which is among the nation's parental-choice leaders, is fortunate to have many forms of choice: charter schools, magnet and specialty schools, online schools, tax-credit scholarships, special-needs scholarships, a thriving homeschool sector, and more.

Professor Jay Greene has perceptively noted that, in a free society, the government rightly defers to parents when it comes to raising their children. And since education is simply a subcategory of parenting, the government should defer to parents when it comes to educating their children. Parents, not government officials, have the moral right to determine their child’s path. Thus, when it comes to Oklahoma education (#OklaEd), policymakers should invest in the children, not in the system.

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Comments Policy

The views expressed in these posts are those of the bloggers and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any institution. The goal of this blog is to create an open discussion about education reform (most notably parental choice) in Oklahoma. All feedback is welcome as long as it includes the commenter's name and doesn't violate the common rules of netiquette.